Buyer Journey Mapping: 2023
Mapping the various stages, and touch points, along a customer's journey to a purchase decision allows organizations to better understand buyer needs, personalize content and influence the sales process.
How aligned is your organization’s sales enablement content with its mapped buyer journeys?
One minute insights:
- Feedback from sales, marketing or customer success teams are the top data sources sales professionals report using to map their buyer journeys
- Awareness (i.e., traffic generation content) is where most sales professionals focus their efforts
- Customers interact with written content more than any other type
- Case studies, or customer success stories, are the most commonly distributed pieces of content to potential buyers
Customer feedback loops are driving confidence in buyer journey map accuracy
Question: What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned in the process of buyer journey mapping or creating buyer enablement content?
I have learned to use feedback loops to my advantage to refine content strategy and ensure that we are adapting to changes in buyer behavior.
Buyers and sellers focusing most on awareness, with written content still king
36% of sales professionals report they primarily focus their buyer enablement on awareness content for traffic generation. 28% focus on consideration (i.e., lead generation) content.
Question: What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned in the process of buyer journey mapping or creating buyer enablement content?
It's hard and you have to keep up with it. Content is king and releasing new content to drive the journey isn't simple. The journey, on the one hand for us, is siloing toward LinkedIn, but LinkedIn is making [it] harder, not easier.
The most commonly selected type of content provided to potential buyers during their buying journeys are case studies or customer success stories (71%). 60% report providing product demos, and 55% provide product one-pagers.
Sales professionals report that potential buyers engage most with awareness content (40%) among their buyer enablement content.
Question: What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned in the process of buyer journey mapping or creating buyer enablement content?
The most important lesson has been recognizing that not all buyers follow a linear, predictable journey. Oftentimes we make simplistic assumptions that customers go through set stages leading to a purchase.
Don't assume every vertical's buy[ing] process is the same. Understand the averages, but having the rep inquire and rediscover throughout the sales process is critical to ensure [the] process is aligned and we are in lock step.
Potential buyers engage most with written content (40%) during their buyer journey. 35% report that their most engaged with content is visual, such as videos or infographics.
Question: Is there anything else you would like to share about the buyer journey mapping at your organization?
Most customers are reactive, wanting me to solve the problem they have today - right content on the right day is critical.
Engagement metrics are central to judging the success of buyer journey mapping
When evaluating the success of buyer journey mapping, 69% of respondents cite engagement metrics (e.g., time on site, return rate, comments, downloads). Satisfaction metrics (e.g., referrals, NPS scores, etc.) are the least selected option (32%).
Question: Is there anything else you would like to share about the buyer journey mapping at your organization?
Buyer journey mapping (and buyer enablement planning) becomes increasingly important as you move from sales-led to product-led, as it is necessarily a more standardized process which is less reliant on sales reps deciding on what communications are best for the prospect.
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